I guess it's time for a race report...
I did it! I've accomplished my first race!... and I lived!
That's about were the boasting ends. I think I was second to last, overall, coming ahead of one other woman. :-(
The results haven't posted yet, but I think my unofficial overall time was 01:46:10 (according to my watch).
This off-road course was a lot tougher than I had expected it to be. The run course was quite rocky and washed out in places, along with needing to jump over fallen trees and navigate through exposed tree roots. Parts of the bike course were similar, but less so. There was one fallen tree that people were obviously having difficulty riding over, as they were high-centering. I think one guy may have damaged the chainring on his cyclocross. I thought it crazy that people even tried to do this course with a cyclocross, but there were about four guys who brought them. I'm not sure whether they all made it or not.
The bike course was a 4 mile loop (x2) of hiking trails and fire roads, with short sections of paved road. The flyer mentioned theis one particular climb which rose 400 feet at 12% grade for over 1/2 mile, but I think the 12% was an average! I had to walk my bike up most of this climb (both laps). I just didn't have the legs for it. I saw one of the cyclocross bikes being walked up this hill, as well as a few others, but I'm sure that most of the racers needed to walk their bikes up this climb.
There were a couple of fun declines. One was paved. It came just before the big climb... steep enough to get 36 mph without even trying. You couldn't ride it out, because at the bottom there was a sharp left turn, so slowing down took up a big part of that section. The other declines where trail. I would go as fast as I could, but at one point was feeling unstable on the loose rock, so I told myself, "Slow it down, Eric, you're not that good!" I was not about to wreck at 20-something mph on loose rock!
I knew that I wasn't in contention for a medal on this day, so I just ran my race. My goal was to finish and I did. While I was out there I was reminded of how unprepared I was for this race; of how out of shape I am; of how 'fast-twich' I am vs. 'slowtwitch.' I was out there thinking, "This is the best workout I've had all year!" I was out there thinking, "I love this!" I'm definitely going to be doing this race again next year... and others just like it.
Fortunately, my wife made it out to the race and got a couple of photos to prove I was out there. If you look closely, you will see that I'm wearing my TRIFUEL hat, doing my best to represent!
(apparently my she didn't set the date correctly on the camera... but, oh well... Thanks for being there Honey!)
I did it! I've accomplished my first race!... and I lived!
That's about were the boasting ends. I think I was second to last, overall, coming ahead of one other woman. :-(
The results haven't posted yet, but I think my unofficial overall time was 01:46:10 (according to my watch).
This off-road course was a lot tougher than I had expected it to be. The run course was quite rocky and washed out in places, along with needing to jump over fallen trees and navigate through exposed tree roots. Parts of the bike course were similar, but less so. There was one fallen tree that people were obviously having difficulty riding over, as they were high-centering. I think one guy may have damaged the chainring on his cyclocross. I thought it crazy that people even tried to do this course with a cyclocross, but there were about four guys who brought them. I'm not sure whether they all made it or not.
The bike course was a 4 mile loop (x2) of hiking trails and fire roads, with short sections of paved road. The flyer mentioned theis one particular climb which rose 400 feet at 12% grade for over 1/2 mile, but I think the 12% was an average! I had to walk my bike up most of this climb (both laps). I just didn't have the legs for it. I saw one of the cyclocross bikes being walked up this hill, as well as a few others, but I'm sure that most of the racers needed to walk their bikes up this climb.
There were a couple of fun declines. One was paved. It came just before the big climb... steep enough to get 36 mph without even trying. You couldn't ride it out, because at the bottom there was a sharp left turn, so slowing down took up a big part of that section. The other declines where trail. I would go as fast as I could, but at one point was feeling unstable on the loose rock, so I told myself, "Slow it down, Eric, you're not that good!" I was not about to wreck at 20-something mph on loose rock!
I knew that I wasn't in contention for a medal on this day, so I just ran my race. My goal was to finish and I did. While I was out there I was reminded of how unprepared I was for this race; of how out of shape I am; of how 'fast-twich' I am vs. 'slowtwitch.' I was out there thinking, "This is the best workout I've had all year!" I was out there thinking, "I love this!" I'm definitely going to be doing this race again next year... and others just like it.
Fortunately, my wife made it out to the race and got a couple of photos to prove I was out there. If you look closely, you will see that I'm wearing my TRIFUEL hat, doing my best to represent!(apparently my she didn't set the date correctly on the camera... but, oh well... Thanks for being there Honey!)
posted by E-Dub at 10/16/2006 07:23:00 AM
2 Comments:
Hooray! Great job! I'm too afraid of courses like that! Scary stuff, but sounds like you had a great time. Keep it up!
Woo Eric! Way to go. Ditto the scary course. Maybe one of these days I'll get offroad too. Nice pic! :)
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